An Ancient Text
Fluttershy sighed as she laid on her back in her yard, her hoof absentmindedly stroking the flower Seabreeze had given her . A blue jay landed next to her and chirped a question in her ear.
“Oh yes, I’m fine,” the yellow Pegasus said as she rolled her head to look at the tiny critter. “Thank you for asking.”
A finch hovering above her chirped another question.
“Oh no, I’m not sick,” Fluttershy said as she sat up to reassure her animal friends. “I just…miss them.”
Chirp-chirpy.
“The Breezies. Even though they were here for only a bit, it felt like they were family.”
Chirp!
“Of course I think of all of you as my family too! But they were…oh, how should I say this?” Fluttershy swallowed. She didn’t want to hurt her animal friends’ feelings, but the Breezies had been different than her friends. Or maybe it was just because she knew that she wouldn’t get to see them again for a long time. Maybe that was why she was missing them so badly. She could see all her animal friends, from Angel and her bird chorus all the way to the Manticore that lived in the Everfree Forest, whenever she wanted. It was hard to miss any of them when that was the case.
Fluttershy suddenly realized she had talked herself into a corner. She moved to stand up, but Angel jumped on her chest, crossed his fuzzy little arms, and glared at her. He began tapping his foot on her stomach, waiting to hear her reply.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry my friends,” Fluttershy said, trying to sit up without knocking Angel aside, but the bunny refused to move. “I didn’t mean to hurt any of your feelings. Of course I still love all of you just as much as—”
“Special delivery!”
“Wha—”
There was a loud crash above Fluttershy’s head and she jumped into the air, sending Angel flying off somewhere. Her wings locked against her sides as she rose and stared at the sky above her. For a moment she hung there, her back resting on an invisible bed of air, and then gravity took over. She kicked her hooves in a vain effort to stay aloft, but ended up crashing into the ground.
“Special delivery for Fluttershy!” a familiar voice said. Fluttershy pushed her head back to see who was talking to her.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, still lying on her back. “Derpy, are you okay?”
The grey Pegasus was hanging from a tree, or at least, partly hanging. Really, it was just her hind hoof that was hanging. The rest of her had face planted into the ground. She had her chin raised so that she was looking at Fluttershy with a smile and crossed eyes.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Derpy said. “Are you okay? You hit the ground pretty hard.”
“Oh, um…yes,” Fluttershy said, rolling over and getting to her hooves. She walked over and helped the mailmare untangle her hoof from the tree branch. “Thank you for worrying about me.”
“You’re welcome,” Derpy said as she stood up and dusted herself off with her wings. “Now, where did I drop your package?”
“Package?” Fluttershy asked as the other Pegasus looked at the ground and searched the surrounding area.
“Yep! It’s from…” Derpy turned around in a half circle and let out a small shout of excitement. “Here it is! Good as new. Er…almost.” She turned back around to face Fluttershy. She was holding what looked like a book wrapped in paper with a twine bow in her teeth.
“What’s that?” Fluttershy asked, suddenly slightly nervous. She wasn’t expecting any packages, and the last time a mysterious one had been delivered to her, it had been from Pinkie Pie. That…had been startling.
“It’s a package,” Derpy said with the twine in her teeth. “Although, if I had to guess, I would say it’s book. Oh! Or a box of chocolate!” Her eyes lit up at that thought. Fluttershy hoped it wasn’t a box of chocolate. Derpy had crashed through the tree and into the ground pretty hard. They were probably smashed now.
Then again, despite all the accidents that Derpy seemed to suffer, the actual mail that she delivered never seemed to be damaged too badly.
“Thank you, Derpy,” Fluttershy said as she took the package. She set it on the ground and undid the twine bow, allowing the wrapping to fall away. It was a green leather book with a flap cover and a small strip of leather wrapped around it to keep it closed.
Afraid that this was another one of Pinkie’s pop-up books, Fluttershy closed both eyes and slowly flipped the cover open. When she didn’t hear any loud explosions or feel confetti slam into her face, she opened one eye ever so slightly.
“Yep. That’s a book all right,” Derpy said, looking up and smiling at Fluttershy. “Look. There’s even a note. It’s addressed to you.”
Fluttershy checked the small piece of paper attached to the cover. It was written in tiny writing, so small that Fluttershy had to lean in super close and squint to make it out. She read it out loud.
“‘Dear Fluttershy. Thank you so much for your help with our journey home. From helping us rest, and then giving the others the push out of the door that they needed so I could see my beautiful baby again. This is from all of us. It’s a bit of a…mish-mash of information about us. We thought you’d enjoy it, seeing as you knew so much about us already.
"'Forever your friend, Seabreeze
"'P.S. Sorry it’s not written in your language. The book is rather old. We had to use a special magic on it just to make it big enough for you to read. I bet that Alicorn friend of yours can translate it for you though. She seemed pretty smart.’”
“From Seabreeze, huh?” Derpy said. “Well, I guess that makes sense. I did get it from him, after all.
Fluttershy gasped and flung the book open. She didn’t know what she would find inside. Maybe it held a secret way to travel to their homeland, or how to communicate with them when they weren’t in Equestria. Or perhaps it was filled with fascinating facts that she hadn’t had a chance to learn about them yet, or what their favorite foods were, or—
“What…?” Fluttershy stared at the pages before her eyes. They were filled with…shapes? That didn’t seem like the right word to her, but it was the closest she could come to describing what she was looking at. She saw a few pictures and drawings as she skimmed through the pages, but most of them were covered in the strange shapes.
“I’ve never seen writing like that before,” Derpy said as she cocked her head to look at the book. “At least, not when I can see straight. Sometimes words looked like that for a bit if I crash into something too hard. Guess you better take it to Princess Twilight like the note said.”
Fluttershy flipped through the pages again, her spirits dampened a bit but still high. Derpy was right, of course. Twilight would be able to translate all the pages. She as really good at that sort of thing, and she loved it too. Fluttershy could stand to wait a little bit longer to find out what was in the book.
“Thank you for the book, Derpy,” Fluttershy said.
“No problem,” Derpy said, saluting with her hoof. “It’s part of my job. It’s also part of my job to take breaks. And right about now, Mrs. Cake is pulling a fresh batch of blueberry muffins out of her oven. See you later, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy watched the grey Pegasus hover into the air and then take off toward Ponyville. She decided she should do the same. She went into her cottage to collect her saddlebag and feed some of the animals, the set off for the Ponyville library. Twilight would be there no doubt.
Fluttershy raised her hoof and knocked gently on the door to the tree house. There was no reply. She knocked again, a little louder this time, but still nothing.
“Maybe she’s not home, Angel,” Fluttershy said as she looked down at the little bunny next to her. Angel hopped to the door. He leaned back on his tail and pounded his hind legs against the door as hard as he could several times. When there was still no answer, he looked up at her and shrugged.
“Oh well,” Fluttershy said as she turned to leave. “I’m sure she’ll be back eventually. She can translate this ancient book some other ti—wah!”
Twilight suddenly appeared in a flash of light directly in front of Fluttershy. She leaned forward on her hooves until her face was pressed against Fluttershy’s. The Pegasus shrank back, but Twilight kept leaning forward until Fluttershy couldn’t lean back any more.
“Did you say ancient book?” Twilight asked, her eyes wide with excitement and her wings fluttering rapidly behind her. Apparently she hadn’t yet learned how to control them when feeling strong emotions.
“Oh, um,” Fluttershy looked to the side, trying to get away from her friend so she could breathe. “Yes. Yes I did. You see—”
“May I see it? Pretty please?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Fluttershy said. “It’s the reason we’re here, actually. It’s in my bag—ooaf!”
Twilight bolted to Fluttershy’s saddlebag and began digging through it frantically. Fluttershy simply stood there, too shy to move.
“Ooooooooh,” the Princess said after a few seconds. She pulled the book out of Fluttershy’s bag with her magic and gazed longingly at the cover. “Is this it?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy said. “Derpy just delivered it to me.”
“Where did she get it?” Twilight asked as she carefully turned the book over, studying every inch of its cover and binding.
“Seabreeze gave it to her.”
Twilight blinked. “Seabreeze? You mean that Breezie? But…how did he do that? The portal closed over a week ago.”
Fluttershy opened her mouth to answer, but no words came. Twilight was right. As far as she knew, it should not have been possible for Seabreeze, or any Breezie for that matter, to get a package to Derpy. The portal had closed, and that was the only way in or out of the Breezies’ realm. Wasn’t it?
“I…don’t know,” the Pegasus said, perplexed.
“Well, we’ll worry about that later. Can I open it?” The sparkle had returned to Twilight’s eyes and she was hopping up and down on her hooves as she looked at Fluttershy.
“Of course you can, Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “But, um, it might be a little hard to understand. It’s not written in any—”
“Runes!” Twilight said in hushed awe. Fluttershy had thought that Twilight’s eyes couldn’t possibly get any bigger when she had appeared moments before. She had been wrong. The Alicorn’s eyes were huge, and they were whipping back and forth as they skimmed the page before them.
“Oh no,” Fluttershy said, nudging next to Twilight to look at the book. “The words are ruined? So you can’t read them?”
“No, not ruins,” Twilight said, still not taking her eyes off of the page. “Runes. An ancient written text that uses lines and symbols. There aren’t any known cases of runes being used in Equestria nowadays, but many, many, many years ago they were rather common.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy said. “Does that mean you’ll be able to translate them?”
“I think so, yes,” Twilight said, finally pulling her eyes away from the book hovering before her. “I recognize a few of the runes here already, and I’m certain I can figure out the rest. It shouldn’t take too long. This is so exciting. I was actually working on a paper about the Breezies before you arrived. I can’t wait to see how this book will help me with my notes!”
“Well, Seabreeze’s note did say that it had a lot of facts about his kind in there.”
Twilight stood on her hind legs and clapped her front hooves. “Yay! I’m gonna get started on this right away! As soon as I’m done I’ll give you a copy of all of my notes and the translated pages.”
“Okay. That sounds great. Thanks, Twilight.”
“No problem.”
Before Fluttershy could say another word, there was a flash of light and Twilight vanished, along with the book. No doubt she had gone straight back into the library and was pulling countless books off of the shelves now.
“Well Angel. I guess we should go back home and wait for Twilight.” Fluttershy took one last look at the door to the library, then turned around and began walking home.
Three days later, Fluttershy once again found herself standing outside of the library. She hadn’t seen hide or tail of Twilight in two days. In fact, no pony had. Spike had told everypony that she was busy working in her study, and had only taken brief breaks to sleep and eat. Fluttershy was getting worried that Twilight was in trouble again, stressing over something that didn’t merit so much worry. Worse, Fluttershy was worried that she might be the reason Twilight had locked herself away. She didn’t want her friend to neglect herself or her friends just so Fluttershy could read a book.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy called as she knocked on the door. There was no answer, just like last time, but unlike last time, she didn’t have a book to lure Twilight out. Still, she wasn’t about to abandon her friend. She knocked again. “Twilight? I’m…I’m coming in. That is, if you don’t mind.”
Fluttershy pushed the door open and peeked inside. It was a public library, but Twilight lived here, and she didn’t want to intrude. Especially if Twilight was in the middle of something important.
The library was deserted as usual. All the books were perfectly shelved and sunlight was beaming into the room. It looked like a pleasant place to sit and read a book, and Fluttershy understood why a book-loving pony like Twilight felt so at home in such a place.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy called as she opened the door all the way and walked into the library. “Are…are you home?”
“Hey, Fluttershy,” Spike called as he came down the stairs in the back of the room.
“Hello, Spike,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” the young dragon said. “Haven’t had much work to do over the past few days, so I’ve just been cleaning and helping Rarity…” The dragon’s eyes misted over and a smile came to his face as his mind wandered.
“Um…is Twilight home?”
“Yeah. She’s upstairs in her room. She’s been going over that book you gave her nonstop. I think she’s finished it.”
“Oh, good,” Fluttershy said, flapping her wings once in excitement. She couldn’t wait to see what was in the book.
Oh, and of course she was happy that Twilight wouldn’t be shutting herself in anymore either.
The Pegasus walked up the stairs to Twilight’s loft. As she climbed the stairs, she noticed that the light dimmed considerably. She found that odd, since it was still daytime outside. As she reached the top, she saw the reason for the darkness.
The blinds were closed over the windows upstairs, and the only light came from the half dozen candles Twilight had lit around the room. She sat at a desk, surround by books and stacks of paper. The purple aura from her magic surrounded several quills, each one scribbling on something, while she moved other things around in a dance that only made sense to her.
“But that doesn’t make any sense…” she mumbled under her breath. “If that’s the case, then why…”
“Um…Twilight?” Fluttershy whispered, feeling like she was intruding on a very private moment. Pinkie Pie had told her once about how she had walked in on Twilight when she had been trying to monitor everything, but even the pink Earth pony’s description of Twilight’s obsession hadn’t prepared her for this.
“So then, if they did that, then that would mean…”
“Twilight?” Fluttershy said a bit louder, but the Alicorn continued to be clueless to her presence. She sighed and looked around the room. It really did look like Twilight hadn’t left the place in days. This wasn’t healthy for a pony, especially a Princess. She needed to do something.
Fluttershy reached out with her tail and flicked a stack of papers, knocking the first one off of the stack. Twilight screamed and flew into the air. She slammed into the ceiling and all the objects she had been controlling came crashing down, scattering more papers and books everywhere.
“Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry!” Fluttershy said as she flew up and hovered next to Twilight, reaching out in an attempt to hold her but afraid to touch her in case she was mad at her.
“Ouch,” Twilight said as she rubbed her head with her hooves. She opened one of her eyes. “Hi Fluttershy,” she said, then her eyes snapped wide open. “Fluttershy?!”
“I’m so sorry Twilight. I just wanted to talk to you. No pony’s seen you in a few days, and I was worried about you, but then you wouldn’t answer me when I called out to you, and…I’m so sorry. I’ll help you clean up.”
“Clean up?” Twilight looked down at the mess in her room. “Oh my goodness. I had no idea I had that much stuff out. Sorry, Fluttershy. Guess I lost myself in my studies again.”
The two ponies floated back to the floor and began cleaning up the mess. It was five minutes before either one of them spoke.
“So, Twilight…how’s that book coming along?”
Twilight’s ears perked up, but she continued to focus on the stack of papers in front of her. “It sure is dark in her,” she said. “Let me open the blinds.” Sunlight flooded into the roomed as Twilight raised the blinds and Fluttershy had to shield her eyes for a moment. “There we go. All better. Now, about that book.”
Twilight turned around and gently pushed the stack of papers she had been working on behind two stacks of books, then walked over to her desk. She picked up another stack of papers, straightening them with her magic, and then walked over to Fluttershy.
“Are…are those your notes?” Fluttershy asked, her spirits rising. All those pages were about the Breezies. She’d be able to learn so much more about them now.
“They’re better than notes,” Twilight said, a prideful smile coming to her face. “I hoof-wrote each page word for, er, rune. It took a lot of work. I had to cross-reference the runes with some books that I found in the Princesses’ old castle. They’re—”
Fluttershy flew into the air and grabbed the stack of papers from Twilight’s magic. She frantically flipped through them. It was all here. The Breezies had been around for centuries; even longer than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Another page said that they tended to live for about forty-seven years. And here was everything that they used the pollen for: cooking, making clothes, and so many other things. And what type of magic they used and how they used it. And a list of what they could do with their antennae, and a calendar of when the portal would open, and what they liked to eat, what routes they took during different times of the year, how big a family tended to be, what their history was…
“Twilight, this is wonderful!” Fluttershy said as she hugged the stack of papers to her chest. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome, Fluttershy. I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Is there any more?”
“What?” Twilight asked, freezing for a second. “More? What makes you think there’s more?”
“Oh, nothing,” Fluttershy said. “I was just asking. This is a rather big stack of paper.”
“Heh heh, yep, sure is,” Twilight said. “So, um, Fluttershy? Do you mind if I…hang on to that book for a bit longer?”
“I don’t mind, but why? You said you translated the whole thing. Didn’t you get enough material for your research paper?”
Twilight scratched the back of her neck. “Well, yeah, but, um…”
“It’s okay, Twilight. I understand,” Fluttershy said as she floated back down to the ground. “You love books, and this must be a rare gem for you. You can keep it for as long as you want. Just promise me that you’ll share anything else you find about them. Okay?”
“Sure…okay,” Twilight said.
“Great! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go home and start reading this. It looks like I’ve got a lot to go over, and I can’t wait. I’m so excited.”
Fluttershy stuffed the pages into her saddlebag, waved goodbye to Twilight and then began walking back down the stairs. As she left the library, her mind raced with excitement. She didn’t know what she wanted to read first. She wondered if Twilight had included a table of contents so Fluttershy could flip to whichever section she wanted. Was the book even divided up that way? She didn’t know, but either way, she couldn’t wait to get home and read all of the pages and share them with Angel and all the other animals.
Maybe she’d be able to plan a special trip to the Breezies’ portal the next time that it opened, and then she could talk to Seabreeze and the others about everything she had learned from the book he had given her.
As soon as Fluttershy left the library, Twilight sent Spike out on an errand, locked the door, closed all the blinds in the library, and went back up to her room. She sat down at her desk again and pulled out the stack of papers she had hidden behind the books when Fluttershy had arrived, and then pulled out the book that Seabreeze had given Fluttershy. She flipped to the back of the book and found her notes that she had been working on. She began reading them again, just to make sure that she hadn’t missed something.
‘It’s been nearly fifty years since my kind was chased here. We used to be feared in all the world. Every creature bowed before us, and with the power of the Stone, nothing dared to challenge us. When those ponies were still ragtag tribes scattered throughout the land, and the Griffons were just emerging from the chaos forest, we ruled everywhere. The Stone gave us power beyond our size. We acquired it through great sacrifice after we beat its guardian. We controlled everything, and everything obeyed us. We were an empire beyond belief.
‘But we should have known better. Using the Stone brought others. We had always suspected that there was more than one, but we, in our pride, believed that nothing would dare to stand against us. Using something beyond our understanding, something so powerful with magic, drew strange creatures. Our empire began to crumble at the edges as the (Twilight had not been able to find a proper translation for the creatures’ name) began to attack us. They devoured entire cities in a matter of days. Our size became a liability. Where before, being small meant that we were impossible to stop, it now meant that we could not use physical weapons. Our magic, which was our greatest weapon, was useless, for the creatures fed on magic.
‘I believe now that it was the Stone that called them, and our use of its magic. We ended up destroying the Stone, but in doing so, we sentenced our empire to death. We had come to rely on the Stone for its support. When is shattered, the (creatures) vanished, but we found that we had grown too weak to survive on our own. We could no longer fly under our own power, and our bodies were even smaller and weaker once the magic left us. Desperate, we spent years looking for another Stone, but it was too late. The other races began to rise up and drive us out.
‘When all hope seemed lost and my kind was on the edge of extinction, we discovered that the magic of the Stone had survived. It had been scattered across our capital city in the form of what other beings thought was pollen. We gathered as much as we could, but it was not enough. As the Griffons hunted the last of us, we used the last of the Stone’s magic to open a portal and fled through it.
‘Now, we are forced to live apart from the rest of the world, a world too dangerous for us to inhabit now. It is…humbling, to go from rulers to beings that are little more than flies to most creatures. We have risked our lives every now and then to return to the world to gather more of the pollen, for we cannot live without it, but I see now that any chance of us returning to our former glory is long past. The Griffons now control most of our lands, and while we have seen no sign of any of the pony tribes in all these long years, I know they’re still out there. Still plotting their revenge, no doubt, just like the Griffons did.
‘I wonder what will become of us as my life draws to an end. Will we be doomed to live here forever, sealed away in our own world and constantly having to risk our lives to obtain more pollen? Most have accepted their fate and have built lives and families here, and the younger ones do not show the same conquest desires that I and so many others once felt. I fear that we are dying. Even if my kind survives and rebuilds here, I doubt I would recognize them in a few generations.’
Twilight stopped reading the passage and sat down, feeling the same level of shock she had felt when she had first read it. She had read it again and again, trying to find something she had missed. She just couldn’t square the Breezies she knew with what she had read in the book. The Breezies had once been rulers of Equestria? It just didn’t seem possible.
Not only that, but the book made the Breezies sound mean. It sounded like they were harsh rulers who had abused their power and used it to rule over the other races in the land. There was no way she could show this to Fluttershy. It would break her heart, even if the entry was several thousand years old. After all, Griffons hadn’t ruled Equestria since before the Three Tribes had come down from the Frozen North, and that had been over three centuries ago.
And then there was the Stone that the passage mentioned. If it was to be believed, the Stone had been some sort of magical artifact that had granted the Breezies unfathomable power, but had also drew…whatever those creatures were that had nearly wiped them out.
An idea suddenly popped into Twilight’s mind. She had recently found a magic stone near the Crystal Empire, and she and Trixie had encountered a creature called a Gazer guarding it. The experience had nearly killed Twilight, and if Trixie hadn’t been there, Twilight was certain she would be dead now. Could that be the creature that the passage was talking about? It certain fit from what she had learned about the Gazer, but then what was the Stone? And if there were more of them, how many more? She and Trixie had smashed the one they had found inside the cave, and Twilight had gathered up the shards and given them to Princess Celestia. It had never occurred to her that there might be more of the stones out there.
Twilight pulled another book from a nearby stack and began to flip through it, looking for answers to her questions. It was what she did best, after all, and these questions seemed like they might be rather important.